- Our new pick is the 13-inch MacBook Pro (2019, two Thunderbolt 3 ports), and the MacBook Air (2019) is our new budget pick.Drawing for mac. Mar 22, 2018 It really depends on whether you’re looking for diagramming software or drawing software - they are two quite separate things. If it’s for drawing flowcharts, process flows etc most Windows users use Visio for professional diagramming because it’s easily the most powerful and widely used technical drawing software out there. Popular CAD software has often been made for Windows, but that belief doesn’t hold with today’s software options. Check out our top-8 picks of the Best CAD for Mac Software. Best Drawing and Art Apps. Job of turning your iPad into a video graphics tablet for your Mac, making for an excellent companion for anybody using Adobe Photoshop and similar software. Best Home Design Software for iPad There are several home design apps you can download on your iPad. The highest rated app in the iOS app store is Home Design 3D Gold. 10 rows Punch Home Design Studio Complete is our Bronze Award winner for the best home and interior design software for Macs. These home and interior design programs work just as well as home design programs for Windows operating systems.
- Our new pick is the 13-inch MacBook Pro (2019, two Thunderbolt 3 ports), and the MacBook Air (2019) is our new budget pick.We continue to recommend the 15-inch MacBook Pro (2019) if you need a larger screen and more speed for photo or video editing.
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Your guide
- Andrew Cunningham
The best Mac laptop for most people is the 13-inch MacBook Pro (2019, two Thunderbolt 3 ports). It’s more than fast enough for the things that most people use a computer for—Web browsing, working on documents, and photo and video editing—and it has an excellent high-resolution screen, a great trackpad, enough battery life to get most people through a day of work, and a (relatively) reasonable price.
Our pick
Apple MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2019, two Thunderbolt 3 ports)
The entry-level MacBook Pro has a fantastic screen, a fast quad-core processor, and a reasonable price, though we wish it came with more ports and more storage.
Buying Options
The entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro includes a quad-core processor and much faster integrated graphics than in the Air, both of which will make your work go significantly faster—2019’s 13-inch Pro is almost as fast as 15-inch models from past years. The laptop does have some shortcomings, but they’re almost all shared by other modern Apple laptops: the low-travel keyboard, a small number of homogenous ports (in this case, two Thunderbolt 3 ports) that may require the use of USB-C hubs or new cables, and a high price relative to Windows laptops with similar performance and features, especially if you need more than 128 GB of storage. But the Pro’s light weight, solid construction, and industry-leading support make it a good laptop, especially if you also own an iPhone or other Apple devices.
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Budget pick
Apple MacBook Air (2019)
The Air includes most of the good stuff from the Pro, such as the great screen, the solid construction, and the Touch ID fingerprint sensor, for a bit less money. But its dual-core processor is noticeably slower.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $1,100.
The 2019 MacBook Air is a couple hundred dollars cheaper and a quarter-pound lighter than the 13-inch MacBook Pro. It also has slightly better battery life, and it’s functionally an identical laptop in most of the important ways: screen, memory and storage, ports, keyboard and touchpad, construction. But its dual-core processor and slower integrated graphics make it a worse choice if you plan on doing much photo and video editing or programming, or if you plan on connecting it to high-resolution external monitors. It also skips the Touch Bar in favor of a row of physical function keys and a standalone Touch ID fingerprint sensor, though depending on how you feel about the flashy but superfluous Touch Bar, you might prefer this.
Upgrade pick
Apple MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (15-inch, 2019)
The 15-inch MacBook Pro has a larger screen and the fastest, most powerful components Apple ships in a laptop, and it’s still relatively thin and light. But you pay a lot for that extra speed.
Buying Options
The 15-inch MacBook Pro is our top Mac pick in our guide to laptops for video and photo editing. You won’t notice a huge speed boost in everyday computing tasks, but our recommended configuration’s six-core Intel Core processor can give it a speed boost of around 30 percent over the 13-inch Pro when rendering video or compiling code, and its discrete AMD Radeon GPUs provide better performance when running 3D drafting programs or games.
Because you can’t upgrade Apple’s current laptops later—the memory, storage, and processors are all built in—you need to make sure to buy the right configuration. We’ve listed our recommended configuration for each of our picks in the sections below.
If you aren’t wedded to macOS, we have a separate guide dedicated to helping you find the right laptop.
Everything we recommend
Our pick
Apple MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2019, two Thunderbolt 3 ports)
The entry-level MacBook Pro has a fantastic screen, a fast quad-core processor, and a reasonable price, though we wish it came with more ports and more storage.
Buying Options
Budget pick
Apple MacBook Air (2019)
The Air includes most of the good stuff from the Pro, such as the great screen, the solid construction, and the Touch ID fingerprint sensor, for a bit less money. But its dual-core processor is noticeably slower.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $1,100.
Upgrade pick
Apple MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (15-inch, 2019)
The 15-inch MacBook Pro has a larger screen and the fastest, most powerful components Apple ships in a laptop, and it’s still relatively thin and light. But you pay a lot for that extra speed.
Buying Options
Why you should trust us
Andrew Cunningham spent more than six years testing, reviewing, and otherwise writing about PCs, Macs, and other gadgets for AnandTech and Ars Technica. He has been building, upgrading, and fixing PCs for more than 15 years, and he spent five of those years in IT departments buying and repairing laptops and desktops as well as helping people buy the best tech for their needs. He has also used just about every Mac laptop that Apple has released in the past two decades.
Who this is for, and when to buy
The best reason to buy a MacBook is if you need or prefer macOS instead of Windows. The operating system is stable and easy to use, but more important, it integrates well with iPhones and iPads—iMessages and SMS messages sent from your Mac also appear on your iPhone and vice versa, and features such as AirDrop and iCloud make it easy to share notes, pictures, videos, reminders, contacts, passwords, bookmarks, and other data between your devices.
Macs are also a good choice if you want great support. Apple’s tech support is routinely rated above that of all other PC and phone makers, and Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers offer accessible in-person tech support and repairs in many locations.
Macs aren’t a great choice if you have less than $1,000 to spend on a laptop, if you want to get the most performance for your money, or if you want to run high-end games. Windows ultrabooks provide as good or better performance, more kinds of ports, and more storage at or below the price Apple charges for the MacBook Air. Budget Chrome OS and Windows laptops are a better choice if you have only $500 to spend. And Windows gaming notebooks, while larger and bulkier than any MacBook, usually have newer and faster dedicated graphics processors than Apple’s laptops do (and you can buy some of them for less than half of what a 15-inch MacBook Pro costs).
The Best Laptops
From budget-friendly options to thin-and-light ultrabooks to powerful gaming laptops, we’ve spent hundreds of hours finding the best laptops for most people.
Your guide
- Jackie Reeve
After we spent more than 60 hours researching and testing irons, (including talking with a professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, an expert at German iron manufacturer Rowenta, and several avid quilters) we think most people will like the Maytag M400 Speed Heat Iron and Vertical Steamer. It’s the best affordable, lightweight, easy-to-use iron for anyone who needs to tackle the occasional wrinkled outfit or linen around the house.
Our pick
Maytag M400 Speed Heat Iron and Vertical Steamer
Lightweight and easy to use, this iron has a lightning-fast heat-up time and comes with a solid two-year warranty. It’s also one of the most affordable irons we tested.
Buying Options
The Maytag M400 has a simple design, a straightforward settings dial, and few extra features. But it begins producing steam on the highest 'linen' setting faster than any other iron we tried—just 24 seconds. That means you can start your ironing faster than with any of our other picks. The Maytag M400 is lighter than other irons we tried, but we were still able to push out wrinkles with a strong, solid burst of steam, and we didn’t get hand cramps. We think that checks a lot of boxes for an iron that costs less than $50.
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Runner-up
Black+Decker D3030 Allure
This affordable iron also removes wrinkles quickly and comes with a two-year warranty that you might have to use. (The heating element seems prone to breaking.)
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $35.
The Black+Decker D3030 Allure is a fantastic, cheap iron—while it works. This was our prior top pick, but after a year our test model’s heating element broke. Because of its two-year warranty, we easily traded it in for a replacement, which we then tested. We’ve been using that replacement since 2016 with no problems. Despite our misgivings about its reliability (multiple reviews on Amazon confirm that durability is an ongoing problem), we still recommend the Allure if you can’t get the M400. The Allure creates a good amount of steam, its stainless-steel soleplate glides smoothly across a variety of fabrics, and our testers agreed that the handle felt the best to hold and use. If you don’t mind replacing a good iron every year or so, this one is still a top performer.
Upgrade pick
Rowenta DW 9280 SteamForce
The SteamForce is the best we tested but cost nearly three times as much as our top pick. It’s worth it only for those who iron a LOT.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $117.
For the third year in a row, the Rowenta DW 9280 SteamForce iron, our upgrade pick, was the best overall at wrinkle busting. It melted creases out of linen napkins and pressed quilt seams with almost no effort. We’ve never seen an iron give off more steam. But it’s heavier and much more expensive than our top pick and runner-up, so we would recommend it for crafters, sewers, and those with busy households or tons of laundry—that is, anyone willing to make the investment to save time and energy. We’ve been using our test model since 2015, and it’s still impressive.
If you’re looking for a great clothes ironing board, check out our full guide here. If you just need to smooth out a couple of items in a hurry or you need to de-wrinkle clothes while traveling, you might be better off with a clothing steamer.
Everything we recommend
Our pick
Maytag M400 Speed Heat Iron and Vertical Steamer
Lightweight and easy to use, this iron has a lightning-fast heat-up time and comes with a solid two-year warranty. It’s also one of the most affordable irons we tested.
Buying Options
Runner-up
Black+Decker D3030 Allure
This affordable iron also removes wrinkles quickly and comes with a two-year warranty that you might have to use. (The heating element seems prone to breaking.)
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $35.
Upgrade pick
Rowenta DW 9280 SteamForce
![Best display for mac Best display for mac](/uploads/1/2/4/7/124798657/903073650.jpg)
The SteamForce is the best we tested but cost nearly three times as much as our top pick. It’s worth it only for those who iron a LOT.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $117.
The research
Why you should trust us
We spoke to experts, including professor Ingrid Johnson of the Home Products Development Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) and Tod Greenfield, co-owner of bespoke New York City tailor Martin Greenfield Clothiers, to determine what makes a great iron and which models or features are best. We heard from Pat Slaven, engineer and project lead on Consumer Reports’s annual irons guide. And we chatted with Kimberly Chaveco, senior product manager at Rowenta.
To winnow down our list of irons to test, we read product reviews from Amazon, looked at specialty blogs like The Ironing Room, and spoke to members of the New York City Metro Mod Quilt Guild. Wirecutter’s readers answered a survey we designed. And we turned to existing research from other sources; Real Simple, Good Housekeeping, Slate, and Consumer Reports have all tested or rounded up models from class-leading brands like Rowenta, Black+Decker, Hamilton Beach, T-fal, and Panasonic.
I'm a sleep writer at Wirecutter, and I’ve worked on our guides to ironing boards, sheets, blankets, and robes (among many others). I’m also a quilter. My mom taught me to sew in third grade, and I’ve been doing it seriously for more than 10 years, making commissioned quilts for private clients and for Cloud9 Fabrics (PDF), and publishing my original patterns in Generation Q and Make Modern magazines. I’m ironing something almost every day.
How we picked and tested
After talking to the quilters from the NYC Metro Mod Quilt Guild, our professional experts, and everyday iron owners, we’ve found that this is what makes a good iron:
Strong steam bursts: The amount of steam whooshing out of an iron’s soleplate affects how quickly you can press an item, especially with heavier fabrics. A well-made iron can exhale close to 30 grams of water vapor a minute, but lesser irons exhale only a couple of grams.
Wattage: The faster an iron heats up, the sooner you can get through this chore. You want an iron that heats up in seconds, and the wattage affects this. The irons we looked at and liked used 1,500 to 1,800 watts—the higher the wattage, the faster it heats up, according to Kimberly Chaveco of Rowenta. She told us the highest cotton setting is typically 365 to 400 °F, and a 1,600-watt iron takes approximately 75 seconds to reach a full 400 °F; a 1,800-watt iron takes just 65 seconds to get there.
A large water tank: The quilters we spoke to from the NYC Metro Mod Quilt Guild told us a large water tank is helpful when you iron a lot, reducing the amount of time you’re refilling the tank and waiting for water to heat. Tailor Tod Greenfield concurred. We looked at widely available irons that could store at least 8 ounces of water.
Durability and a good warranty: In the owner reviews I’ve read for steam irons, the most consistent complaint I’ve seen is that they aren’t built like they used to be. I’ve owned enough irons to know how frustrating it is when you’re pressing something last minute, trying to get out the door on time, and the iron just doesn’t heat up, or the steam function gives up while you’re pressing something. Readers have told us they generally don’t iron things as much as their parents (or, let’s be honest here, probably their mothers) did, but when you need an iron it should be dependable. Irons do break—our runner-up pick from Black+Decker has durability issues—but if it has a strong warranty (two years for the Black+Decker), that could still make it worthwhile.
A well-made iron can exhale close to 30 grams of water vapor a minute, but lesser irons exhale only a couple of grams.
We also recommend several other features common in mid-priced irons:
- vertical steaming to relax drapes or clothes on a hanger
- anti-drip and anti-calcification mechanisms that allow the use of tap water
- lights to signal the iron has reached its temperature
- an 8-foot-long cord
- inspection stamps such as 'UL' or “ETL” that signify the manufacturer opted to pay for (and passed) rigorous third-party iron-safety tests
I set up boards and irons in my dining room and ran the irons through some basic tests: heat-up time, water tank size, and wrinkle-busting ability on a variety of fabrics. I used cotton quilt fabrics, acrylic sweaters (known to melt onto the plate of a hot iron), t-shirts, some synthetic fabrics, and a piece of silk for testing. Referring back to the feedback from our 2016 testing with staffers in the Wirecutter office, I noted how each iron felt to hold, how easy it was to use, and how much steam each seemed to release.
Because durability is hard to gauge in one testing period, we’ve continued to use all of our picks to see if they maintain their great performance over time. We’ve tested each one over a span of a year and a half to three years.
Our pick: Maytag M400 Speed Heat Iron and Vertical Steamer
Our pick
Maytag M400 Speed Heat Iron and Vertical Steamer
Lightweight and easy to use, this iron has a lightning-fast heat-up time and comes with a solid two-year warranty. It’s also one of the most affordable irons we tested.
Buying Options
The Maytag M400 Speed Heat Iron and Vertical Steamer packed the best combination of features in our testing: quick heat-up time, good steam, agility, reliability, and a great price. We also like that this iron comes with a longer-than-average two-year warranty.
According to Maytag, the iron doesn’t reach its highest temperature for 55 seconds, but in our tests it started producing steam on its highest setting in only 24 seconds. That’s the fastest overall, and it’s truly impressive. If you iron a lot like I do, or if you’ve ever been in a hurry to iron something and get on with your day, you know that we rarely wait for the iron to be 100 percent ready. You’ve probably hummed most of the Jeopardy! theme song standing there waiting to hear that magic Darth Vader steam sound. In contrast, the powerful Rowenta Steamforce, our upgrade pick, took a whopping 54 seconds to make that sound.
This is a 1,500-watt iron, which is the least powerful iron we tested aside from the Maytag M1200 Digital Smartfill Iron (also 1,500 watts). Though it didn’t give off as much steam as the Rowenta SteamForce or even the Black+Decker Allure, the M400 felt more powerful than many irons we tried with more wattage. Some of that might be ergonomics. I really appreciated the shallow steam burst button on the Maytag. I have small hands, and most irons we’ve tested have a steam button that’s about an inch high off the iron. I found that a taller button can cause hand cramps. The Maytag M400’s shorter button was easier to push repeatedly, which helped produce a lot of steam quickly. But we think this design would work for anyone, small hands or not.
![Best Best](/uploads/1/2/4/7/124798657/949104141.jpg)
The Maytag was actually the lightest iron we tested overall, and it still managed to push out wrinkles with barely any pressure. It passed smoothly over every fabric we tested, and the light weight meant we could glide quickly and get those wrinkles out faster. It was as agile as the Rowenta Steamforce and even smoother than the Black+Decker Allure and the Shark Ultimate Professional.
The M400 outperformed two pricier, higher-wattage Rowentas we tested—The Everlast and the Pro Master—when it came to reliability. While the Rowentas dripped water, the Maytag didn’t leak and had no problems with the delicate fabrics I used. Long-term testing will show us if the M400 can outlast the Black+Decker D3030 Allure, our current runner-up.
The Maytag M400 retails for about $50 on Amazon, which fits squarely in the price range our survey respondents preferred. It’s similarly priced to our runner-up, the Black+Decker D3030 Allure. Several of the other models we’ve tried in this price range (the Panasonic NI-E660SR and the Hamilton Beach Chrome Electronic 14955) felt cheap: Their temperature dials didn’t stay locked in place, they took longer to heat up, and they just didn’t have much oomph when it came to getting out wrinkles.
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While a one-year warranty is common and, we think, a minimum, the Maytag offers two years for their irons. A longer warranty can cover problems that crop up later in the product’s lifetime—ideal for people who iron infrequently. Maytag irons are actually licensed by Storebound, who handle warranties and repairs. We called and asked what to do with a broken iron, and, no questions asked, the customer service rep offered to send me a UPS return label that day and get a new one out to me in two or three business days. We think that quick, no-hassle turnaround from Storebound edges their warranty ahead of that of Black+Decker.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
The Maytag may be too light to get creases out of some fabrics. If you’re ironing something big and heavy, or something with stubborn creases (like linen), extra weight is useful for pushing out and smoothing those wrinkles. We still think the Rowenta Steamforce’s combination of heft and powerful steam bursts are worth the investment if you iron a lot or iron anything with precision creases like quilt seams. But for occasional ironing, or even light everyday ironing, we think the Maytag’s agile design more than meets those needs.
We wish the Maytag had a longer cord, which is only eight feet. Sometimes extra length helps you maneuver the iron around an ironing board. And it would give a little more flexibility for setting up your ironing station if you have limited space and limited outlets.
Our pick: Long-term test notes
We’ve been using the Maytag iron in our NYC office, for all of our photo shoots and kitchen-linens testing, since March 2017. Our staff hasn’t had any problems with reliability, and we still find it comfortable to use.
Runner-up: Black+Decker D3030 Allure
Runner-up
Black+Decker D3030 Allure
This affordable iron also removes wrinkles quickly and comes with a two-year warranty that you might have to use. (The heating element seems prone to breaking.)
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $35.
If the Maytag M400 is sold out or unavailable, we would recommend getting the Black+Decker D3030 Allure instead. The Allure is one of the lightest irons we tested, weighing 3.1 pounds. It also has one of the most comfortable handles we’ve tried. Its stainless steel soleplate glides more smoothly across fabrics than most of the competitors in the same price range. The Allure is a 1,600-watt iron, but its steam function feels more powerful than the Rowenta Steamcare or the significantly pricier 1,700-watt Rowenta Pro Master and 1,750-watt Rowenta Everlast. And only the Maytag M400 was faster to produce hot steam in our testing.
But there’s a big reason we had to demote this iron from the top spot: We are worried it may have longevity problems. The heating element on the Allure we were long-term testing failed after about a year (we were using the iron twice a week). There are a little over 300 reviews for the iron, and about half (23 out of 45) of the one- and two-star Amazon reviews for this model note the same problem. But with its two-year warranty, it was pretty easy to get a replacement. (We mailed in the plug with the serial number and waited for the replacement, which took 17 days from mailing to receiving.)
Having an iron fail in less than a year was really disappointing, but it can happen even with higher-end irons. We can’t deny what a strong competitor the Allure is—especially since it’s only about $38. Even with this big reliability issue, we would still recommend the Allure as an affordable backup option for the Maytag over everything else we’ve tried.
Runner-up: Long-term test notes
Black+Decker sent us a replacement iron in 2016 after the first one we tested in 2015 failed. I haven’t had any reliability problems with it in the past two years, and it’s still a fantastic iron for everyday use and for sewing. If this one fails after the warranty runs out, I will probably buy another one myself.
Upgrade pick: Rowenta SteamForce
Upgrade pick
Rowenta DW 9280 SteamForce
The SteamForce is the best we tested but cost nearly three times as much as our top pick. It’s worth it only for those who iron a LOT.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $117.
If an iron can be dreamy, the Rowenta SteamForce is dreamy. This German-made iron performed best in our tests. At 3.9 pounds, it’s too heavy to be the most comfortable to hold, and not all of our testers loved the layout of the buttons and dials. But none of us could argue with the way it beat every wrinkle we threw at it. The stainless steel soleplate has more holes than any of our other test picks, and the tip has Rowenta’s Precision Shot, a group of holes that emits a concentrated blast of steam for tougher creases. The SteamForce also has an extra-large tank, so you need fewer refills for big jobs.
There are drawbacks to the SteamForce. The cord is only 7 feet long, which felt a little puny. It has a one-year warranty in the United States, which is less generous than the two-year warranties offered by Black+Decker and Maytag. And we did run into an issue with our test model, which Rowenta assured us was a fluke. The cover to the water tank crumbled away in my hand as I was filling the tank. We couldn’t find any reviews that mentioned this as an existing problem, and Rowenta sent us another one to try. We haven’t had any problems with it in a year of long-term testing.
The biggest problem is that this one costs about twice as much as the Maytag M400. It has come down in price by more than half since we originally tested it in 2015, though. We think the SteamForce is worth the price if you’re a sewer or quilter and your iron is an essential tool. The same goes if you regularly tackle mountains of everyday ironing and you want something to help get the job done. But first go to a store and make sure the weight isn’t a problem.
Upgrade pick: Long-term test notes
I’ve been consistently using this iron since December 2015, and it is almost as good as when it was new. I hear the occasional sputtering from the water tank, but it still heats up quickly and flattens wrinkles. I reach for the lighter Black+Decker for big loads of ironing to save my wrist and arm, but this model is still the one I reach for when pressing quilt seams, ironing on transfers, and making other craft projects.
Care and maintenance
Whichever iron you end up with, take a minute to read the manual. We’re not kidding. It sounds obvious, but it’s the best maintenance tip we can give you.
Whichever iron you end up with, take a minute to read the manual. We’re not kidding. It sounds obvious, but it’s the best maintenance tip we can give you.
Compatibility updates will be provided through the normal updater mechanism within the program. We will, Lord willing, continue to provide compatibility fixes for BibleWorks 10 well into the future. What about the Mac version of the program? Logos bible software for mac. This will ensure that you can continue to use the program for the long term. BibleWorks updates for the PC will also work on the Mac platform.
According to Pat Slaven, project lead on the Consumer Reports iron test, frustration could be prevented if people emptied the water reservoirs when they’re finished ironing or used the burst-of-steam function to flush mineral deposits once a month (or otherwise followed the instructions). Failing to read the manual, Slaven insisted, is why so many irons end up leaking, spitting, or broken.
Water seems to cause most of the problems. According to Consumer Reports, almost all irons are designed for tap water these days, but you need to read the manual to confirm what your iron requires. Hard water leaves damaging calcium deposits ('scale') on valves and materials intended for use with soft or distilled water, while distilled water strips essential minerals from internal bits designed for hard water. So if a manual asks about the mineral richness of your water and you don’t know, find out. (Here is a loose guide. This will test your tap water.) Then follow the instructions. Doing so could add years to the iron’s lifespan.
How many years? Unfortunately, no one tests longevity. And it was difficult to decipher the credibility of user posts about durability. More than one well-intentioned ironer griped when after using distilled water, his iron, designed for hard water, went kaput. Our general sense was that an iron used according to its instructions should last about four years, but even higher-priced irons get dinged for early failure.
The competition
The Shark Ultimate Professional GI505 was our previous runner-up. It isn’t a bad iron, but its design is frustrating. The steam burst button is tall and hard to press, making it tough to iron and use steam in one fluid movement. We also don’t like the push-button temperature control that always defaults to the lowest setting. You have to push the button several times to get to the highest heat when you first plug it in, and if you’re not paying attention you could waste time waiting for it to heat up before realizing it’s on low heat.
The Rowenta DW 3180 Steamcare only took 36 seconds to generate steam and has a decent-size water tank. But it has no temperature settings at all. You just plug it in and iron. It was an okay iron, but the lack of temperature control meant it wasn’t as quick or as powerful as our other picks. The steam burst button is on the far right side of the handle, which also made it really uncomfortable to use. It might be ideal for left-handed folks, but for me it was awkward to stretch my thumb that far while ironing.
I’ve owned the Rowenta Pro Master for a few years, and I’ve always had problems with it leaking. It gives off a good amount of steam, but before testing it again for this guide, I’d barely touched it for about a year. The leaks became too problematic for delicate quilt work or favorite clothes.
The Rowenta Everlast leaked right away during our testing. We don’t think there’s any excuse for a $100 iron to leak right out of the box. It also was the least effective iron in this round of testing for getting out wrinkles. It’s a heavier iron, and it still needed a lot of brute strength to smooth out wrinkles that the airy Maytag M400 barely touched to flatten.
The Maytag M1200 is the digital offering in the Maytag line of irons, and it was disappointing all around. The 'digital' element means that instead of having a dial to set the fabric and temperature, it has three lights with a button that you push to select low, medium, or high temperature. The buttons seemed to beep at random, and even reading the manual we struggled to identify all the noises or how to stop them. And it took a long time to produce steam—52 seconds. The M1200 also didn’t do a great job of getting wrinkles and creases out.
The Hamilton Beach Chrome Electronic 14955 was a pain to fill with water. The cover to the water tank was so tight it took two hands to pry it open. (Not fun when it’s time to refill or empty the tank.) It also didn’t do well with our wrinkly linen napkins, and it took quite a while to heat up.
While the T-fal FV4495 Ultraglide took the top slot in a previous iteration of this guide, the iron wore poorly over a year in our office, raising significant questions about its long-term reliability. (We’ll revisit our other current picks over time as well.) I had heard complaints from staffers who’d used this iron throughout the year that it leaked a lot, but leaking is an understatement. When we plugged it in, it spewed so much water out of the steam holes that we immediately unplugged it in case it was a fire hazard. That depleted its water tank, and when we finally plugged it back in to try ironing something, it leaked water on our test fabrics. It did get the wrinkles out of some fabrics we tested, though.
The Panasonic NI-E660SR is inexpensive, and you can tell: It felt like cheap plastic. At 1,200 watts, it took a lot of elbow grease to get out even small wrinkles. Speaking as a former college RA, though, I could imagine it in a dorm room. The price is right in a student’s budget (especially if it gets lost or 'borrowed' and needs replacing) and it won’t trip any circuits.
The Best Ironing Board
After 25 hours of research and testing, we recommend the Brabantia Ironing Board B. It’s both stable and compact, and it should last through many years of use.